COTTON CULTURE. 183 



is delivered into the huller by an endless canvass apron ; 

 it passes under a cylinder revolving at great speed, 

 armed with steel blades, and surrounded about two-third's 

 way by a concave box also armed with corresponding 

 knives. As the seed is forced between these, the pericarp, 

 or hull, is broken and forced from the kernel. The mass of 

 crushed seed then falls into a great revolving sieve. The 

 kernels, many of which are broken into fine pieces, pass 

 through the meshes of the wire sieve, and the pericarp, to 

 which the lint adheres, is carried away and delivered into 

 the fire-room, where it is burned under the boilers, and 

 affords a full supply of good fuel for the use of the estab- 

 lishment. The clean seed is now carried by means of a 

 system of elevators to the attic story, and then passes down 

 into the crushers or rollers. These eonsist chiefly of two 

 rollers revolving towards each other with unequal veloci- 

 ty, so geared as to produce both a crushing and a tearing 

 effect upon the seed. The meal, as the seed is now called, 

 falls to the bin on the first floor, and is shoveled into the 

 heater by the pressman's attendant. The heater is a short, 

 double cylinder, so arranged as to heat the meal in the in- 

 ner cylinder by steam, which circulates in the space be- 

 tween the inner and the outer walls. Here the meal is 

 heated until the water is converted into steam and 

 escapes; the hot meal is then placed in wedge-shape 

 bags, made of woolen duck; these are placed in hair 

 books, which slide into the boxes of the press. As soon 

 as the pressman has filled all the books, the pump is 

 set to working, and the tremendous power of the hydraul- 

 ic press soon forces out the liquid oil in warm, gushing 

 streams. Seven minutes up, and the press returns ; the 

 books are thrown out, the duck bags are stripped from the 

 meal, now pressed into solid cakes, the cakes are set up in 

 racks to dry, and thus the operation is completed. 



From the seed which was thrown into the huller, two 

 merchantable articles are produced at the press, crude 



